


(with you I could) summon the gods and the stars

by kaerstyne



Category: Dragalia Lost (Video Game)
Genre: Case Fic, Consentacles, Curran discovers he likes tentacles, Established Relationship, Frottage, Heinwald acquires some tentacles, Light Bondage, M/M, Tentacle Sex, so that works out well for them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:48:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaerstyne/pseuds/kaerstyne
Summary: Heinwald has been learning some new tricks lately, and Curran isn't quite sure what to make of them.
Relationships: Curran/Heinwald (Dragalia Lost)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	(with you I could) summon the gods and the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PluralForce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PluralForce/gifts).



Even after they became partners, and later became _partners_ , it wasn't as though Curran and Heinwald spent all their time together. Curran had plenty of cases Heinwald had no interest in, and Heinwald was often busy doing...whatever it was he was doing with the creepy research collection in his manor. So they still went their separate ways a fair bit of the time, and it wasn't unusual for Heinwald to pick up a new spell or technique while Curran was elsewhere. That was totally fine and normal.

But whatever he'd been teaching himself lately was a different story.

Curran first noticed it a few months after the incident at Teinsom, during a case investigating some strange goings-on at the local cemetery. Someone or something had been disturbing the graves and leaving magic sigils scrawled in the dirt, which was the sort of thing that made both the Church and the townspeople unhappy. So Curran and Heinwald staked out the cemetery at night to see what turned up.

As it turned out, the disturbances were being caused by some idiot who thought he'd try his hand at necromancy. And the thing about necromancy, as Heinwald was happy to go on about at length, was that you had to do everything exactly right, or the shambling horrors you raised would be even more horrific and might decide you'd make a good lunch.

Which is how the two of them ended up fighting off a group of animated corpses that were very determined to kill the person who'd brought them back, along with anyone else who happened to be nearby.

Half-revived corpses weren't exactly combat experts, so the trick was mostly making sure you didn't mutilate them to the point that their still-living relatives got more angry at you than the necromancer. Curran dispatched his half easily enough, when he turned to see if Heinwald was done with his half yet, he noticed Heinwald was doing something different than usual.

Instead of waving his staff and blasting the corpses with magic, he was chanting something in a language Curran didn't recognize, and a dark magical glow was gathering around him, steadily growing in intensity. It gave Curran the creeps in a way that made him think of Nyarlathotep's library, and he had a sneaking suspicion Heinwald had been doing some extracurricular reading again.

When the cloud of magic around him had grown to the point Curran could barely see him through it, the chanting suddenly stopped. There was a long moment of eerie silence, and then the magic...exploded, for lack of a better word, rushing away from Heinwald in a single instant and leaving the air clear again.

And all of the corpses dropped to the ground, lifeless.

"Well, that was quite effective," Heinwald said cheerily, as though this was all completely normal.

Curran walked over and prodded one of the bodies with his toe, just to be sure. Nothing happened. "Where'd you learn how to do that?"

Heinwald shrugged. "Oh, just reading some of the magical texts I've acquired. I was curious to see if it would work, given it wasn't originally intended for reanimated corpses."

"Magical texts, right." He poked the body again. Still nothing. "And if you read the wrong text and started developing bizarre powers from one of those entities we've run into, you'd mention it to me, right?"

"Of course."

This was not encouraging.

* * *

The second time Curran noticed something was different, they weren't even on a case. They'd been at the Halidom helping out the prince, and were on their way back to Heinwald's mansion when they ran into a group of fiends.

This wasn't an uncommon occurrence when traveling around the Halidom, so they didn't need to discuss it anymore; Heinwald just rolled his eyes and said "Again?", and Curran gestured at a few of them with his axe and said "I'll take those", and that was that.

Except, as Curran finished off his first fiend and pivoted toward the next, he saw Heinwald out of the corner of his eye, with that same dark magical glow from the necromancer incident surrounding him. It had already completely covered both Heinwald and the two fiends closest to him, to the point that Curran could just barely make out their silhouettes through the darkness.

Even more concerning were the additional silhouettes of long, thin shapes stretching between Heinwald and the fiends. At first Curran thought they were coming from the fiends—they looked sort of like the long feelers and vines he'd seen on forest fiends before—but after watching for another moment he realized they were actually coming from _Heinwald_. Clearly it was a spell of some sort, but not one Curran had seen before, and he didn't know what to make of it, especially considering what had happened last time.

He was forced to stop watching when one of the fiends near him almost sliced through his jacket with its claws, and he had to turn away to introduce the rest of them to the business end of his axe.

When he finished and looked back over at Heinwald, the fiends were lying on the ground, and both the dark cloud of magic and the long shapes were receding into Heinwald's staff. He waited until Heinwald's face was visible again, then raised an eyebrow at him. "So, you remember that thing I said before about telling me when you get new weirdo powers? What was _that_?"

Heinwald smirked. "Well, I may have picked up a few things from a truly fascinating grimoire Nyarlathotep pointed me toward a while back."

"Oh, Ilia." Curran groaned. "Just be careful with that, all right?"

"I do know what I'm doing, Curran."

"I know you do, but be careful anyway."

"I'll make an effort."

This was still not encouraging.

And there was something about the strange, vine-line shapes that Curran couldn't quite get out of his head.

* * *

And then there was the incident with the spider.

It had been obvious that something was up from the moment they set foot in the village; the villagers had been cagey and didn't seem to have any interest in talking to outsiders, even before they'd realized Curran was an inquisitor. And yet, the innkeeper had been surprisingly welcoming, and said multiple times how pleased he was to have visitors again after so long.

In hindsight Curran really should have realized what that meant, but he'd been tired after travelling all the way to the village in one day, and the bed had looked awfully inviting. And heretics almost never _actually_ tried to abduct him in his sleep.

 _Almost_ never.

He didn't remember what happened after that. Normally no one could manage to grab him without waking him up, and he hadn't taken any food or drink from the innkeeper, so he could only assume whoever this was—cultists? it was usually cultists—had a pretty powerful sleeping spell up their sleeve. But the end result was that when he came to, he was not on the bed, or in the inn, or even on the ground. Someone had stuck him to the wall of what looked like an underground cavern, probably ten meters in the air. His limbs weren't restrained, but he couldn't move them; they were firmly fixed in place with some kind of sticky, stringy substance, almost like a...

...spider web. He was stuck in a giant spider web.

"Well, that's a new one," he muttered to himself, glancing around the rest of the cavern. This was definitely the home of some kind of spider fiend; there were other webs covering the rest of the walls, and clumps of disturbingly large eggs scattered over the floor. At least the fiend itself seemed to be elsewhere at the moment, which was something. It might give him enough time to figure out how to get the hell out of here.

The strands of the web were strong, and extremely sticky; he couldn't dislodge himself just by wiggling around. There wasn't anything within reach other than the web itself and the wall behind it; some of the rocky protrusions on the wall were sharp, but not sharp enough to cut through the web, at least not without more force than he could muster from the angle he was stuck at. The probably-cultists hadn't brought his things into the cavern with him, as far as he could see, and there wasn't anything else useful-looking on the ground that he could try to reach.

He was about ready to move on to more desperate ideas when he heard a crash from somewhere outside the cavern, followed by the angry roar of a fiend. Was it coming back already? Shit.

There was another roar, one that sounded more like a cry of pain than anger, and an explosion loud enough to make Curran's ears ring. It _was_ coming back, but someone was fighting it. That was...good, probably, assuming whoever it was actually an altruist and not another cultist having some kind of internal dispute.

A final roar echoed through the cavern, trailing off into an anguished death rattle, and a massive _thud_ as the fiend's body presumably hit the ground. Curran still couldn't see any sign of it from his position, but he could see a cloud of dust and debris kick up in one corner of the cavern, near a dark patch on the wall that looked like it might be a tunnel. He squinted at the spot, trying to see into the darkness beyond for a sign of who or what might be coming.

"I really don't know how you get yourself into these situations."

"GAH!" Curran jerked in surprise, as much as he could jerk with his entire body held in place by the web, and looked back at the ground in front of him to see Heinwald, staring up at him appraisingly. "Where did you come from?!"

"That tunnel." Heinwald pointed toward the opposite wall, out of Curran's range of vision. "There was a giant spider corpse blocking the other entrance."

"So it's definitely dead, then? Good. That's good." Curran tugged an arm against the web to make the strands visibly shake. "Now how about you get me down from here?"

"Oh, I don't know. Seeing you all strung up like this is rather tantalizing."

"Rescue now, flirting later, Heinwald," Curran grumbled, ignoring the way his stomach flip-flopped at the thought. The whole restraint thing _was_ sort of appealing, now that he mentioned it. Except for the part with the giant spider fiend that wanted to eat him for dinner.

"If you insist." Heinwald continued looking up at him for a few moments, his expression considering, before making a gesture with his staff. A swirl of magic appeared behind him, one that looked suspiciously like the dark clouds Curran had seen before, and something shot out from it right toward him. He barely had time to flinch before it ripped through the web next to him, like it was no more substantial than a regular spider web, and began to carve through the rest of the strands holding him in place.

"Uh." It was hard not to stare at Heinwald while he worked, considering there was a dark patch of magic floating in the air just behind the small of his back, with one long, thin appendage stretching out of it and up to where Curran was hanging. It looked like an octopus tentacle without the suckers, and it was _wriggling_ against Curran's leg, sweeping down and along his body like it was drawing an outline around him. It was certainly effective, with more and more of the web falling away from him as it worked, but the sensation was...distracting.

Even more so as the tentacle neared the end of its work and he realized there was no longer going to be anything holding him in the air, and it was long way down to the ground. "Uh, Heinwald—"

The last of the web came away with a _snick_ , and Curran fell. He spent a few seconds scrabbling for purchase against thin air, to no avail, before suddenly coming to an abrupt stop half a meter above the ground. He glanced down and saw he was being held up by three more tentacles, sprouting from the same place just behind Heinwald's back. They held him steady, but were still moving, the tips flicking back and forth and the flesh rippling like the appendages were alive and breathing. He'd never felt anything like it before, and was trying very hard to ignore exactly _how_ he felt about it until they were out of this whole situation. "Heinwald. What was it you were saying before about it being 'only a few things' you were picking up?"

Heinwald shrugged, the movement not shifting the tentacles at all. "It's useful, is it not?"

"I mean, I'm not complaining in this instance, but—" The tip of one tentacle flicked against Curran's ear. "Look, just put me down and let's get out of here, all right?"

"Good idea." The tentacles retracted back into the magic swirl they'd come from, and Curran dropped unceremoniously to the ground with a grunt of surprise. He picked himself up, flashed Heinwald a scowl with no real force behind it, and started shuffling toward the exit.

Heinwald fell into step next to him. "You know, you really should be more careful if you're going to go on these missions without asking for my help first. I'm not always going to conveniently come along to save you."

Yes, this was much more comfortable territory. Bickering with Heinwald was easy, and gave him something to focus on that wasn't the way his ear burned where the tentacle had touched it. "What _are_ you doing here, anyway?"

"I heard a rumor about a village full of people who worship an entity that takes the form of a massive spider, and show their deference by offering it unsuspecting travellers for its meals. And that a poor, hapless inquisitor had been sent there to investigate."

"Yeah, that's a lot more information than the rumor I got."

"Clearly, or you wouldn't have walked right into the most obvious trap I've ever seen."

"Well, you know what they say. All's well that ends veal."

"Curran. Stop talking."

* * *

After a few days of thinking about it—thinking about it way more than necessary, if he was being honest, visions of long wriggling appendages appearing on the back of his eyelids when he closed them for too long—Curran finally decided he should just talk to Heinwald about it directly.

"So," he said, from where he was sprawled on Heinwald's couch, "about the other day."

Heinwald, who was scribbling something at his desk on the other side of the room, didn't look up. "You mean when you walked into a trap and were almost eaten by a giant spider?"

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you." Curran sighed. "Yes, that, but not that part. The, uh, other part." Okay, "directly" may have been wishful thinking. Even talking about it this vaguely, he still had to fight to keep a blush from his face.

Heinwald, of course, was oblivious to his plight. Or at least pretending to be. "What other part would that be?"

"The part with the..." He made a wiggly gesture with his hand. "You know. I don't know what you call them." This was just sad now. _Get a grip, Curran._

Heinwald still didn't look up from his notes, but there was a hint of dry amusement in his voice. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."

"The _tentacles_ , Heinwald," he blurted out, just to get it over with. "The part where you apparently have tentacles now."

"Oh, that." The dryness was still there, but the amusement was gone. "Did you finally remember you're an inquisitor of heresy and you're supposed to go after people who do things like read dark grimoires and grow new appendages?"

"What?" That was...not the reply Curran had been expecting, wasn't even in the same universe as the reply he'd been expecting, and his whole train of thought came to an abrupt halt. "What are you talking about?"

"I assume the reason you brought this up was to object to my newfound abilities. You've been muttering about them for a while now."

"Heinwald, how long have we been doing this? Do you seriously still think I want to investigate you for heresy?" That kind of stung, he had to admit. "I'm perfectly aware you get up to plenty of things the Church wouldn't approve of, I just don't particularly _care_. I trust you not to hurt anyone with whatever you're doing, so what does it matter?"

There was a pause, and then Heinwald finally looked up at him, one eyebrow arched and a hint of a genuine smile on his lips. That was more like it. "Has anyone ever told you you're a terrible inquisitor?"

"And yet the Church still pays me, so I must be doing something right. Now can we talk about the tentacle thing?"

Heinwald seemed to actually be giving him his full attention now; he'd stopped fiddling with his notes and was looking at Curran with interest. "So if you aren't interested in them for their heretical properties, why _are_ you interested in them?"

"Because I prefer to know when you're doing things that might get you in trouble, you doofus." Curran rubbed at his eyes and tried to figure out how to steer this conversation back to where he'd meant it to go. "Also because... how did you even get them? How do they work?"

Heinwald considered for a moment. "I didn't _intend_ to acquire them. There was a passage in the grimoire about a particular type of tentacled creatures that serve the Ancient One, which apparently has...interesting effects, when read out loud."

Curran snorted. "Okay, if you're reading passages out loud from a grimoire without checking for weird effects first, I don't think you get to sass me about walking into traps. Even I know what happens when you do that."

"Yes, well." He sounded miffed, in the sort of way that meant he knew Curran was right but didn't want to admit it. "They've been simple enough to control, so far, and I can put them away when they aren't needed. And you must admit they've been useful."

"They have." Curran considered his next words carefully. Because yes, he was the one who wanted to talk about this, but that didn't mean he had any idea what the hell he was doing. "They're not really attached to you, right? So...how well can you control them, exactly?"

"Well enough for everything I've tried so far," Heinwald said lightly. "Why, did you have a particular use in mind?"

And now Curran was back to trying not to blush. "I was just curious. Good to know how they work in case they can come in handy for something later, right?"

"Certainly." Heinwald just looked at him for a long moment, like he was assessing a particularly intriguing magical artifact. "Is that your only interest in them, then?"

It was a relief that Heinwald seemed to be picking up on where he was going with this, honestly. This way Curran could just...play along, as if Heinwald was prying this out of him and he wasn't the one who brought the whole thing up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Heinwald said, standing up from his chair and walking over to Curran's side of the room, "you've had rather intriguing reactions every time the topic has come up. We've established they aren't moral concerns, and they don't seem to be coming from fear." He stopped in front of the couch and looked down at Curran with a knowing smirk. "So I'm very curious where they _are_ coming from."

"I..." Curran swallowed. "Can I touch them?"

Heinwald's smirk turned into a sharp grin, and he made a complicated gesture with his hand. Dark wisps of magic began to materialize around him, gathering in that spot behind the small of his back to form the now-familiar cloud. Now that Curran had a proper look at it, "black cloud" didn't do it justice—it was more like a void, one that sucked all the light out of the space around it and obliterated it completely. He'd seen a similar effect watching Nyarlathotep in battle.

He should probably be more concerned about the implications of that. But it was Heinwald, who he trusted implicitly, and if anyone knew how to handle this sort of thing it was him.

It was at that point that a tentacle emerged from the void in question and bopped him on the forehead.

" _Heinwald_."

Heinwald laughed and the tentacle retracted, hovering near his shoulder as it curled and uncurled itself. "You seemed distracted. I couldn't resist."

More tentacles emerged from the cloud, five or six of them sticking out from behind Heinwald's back and gently swaying back and forth. Curran reached out and touched the one that had poked him, running the back of his finger along its surface. It was cooler than human skin, but not outright cold, and had an unexpectedly soft texture that made him want to keep touching it. The tentacle seemed to have a similar idea; it leaned forward and draped itself over his palm, like it was holding his hand.

Curran glanced over at Heinwald, who was watching the interaction with interest. "Are you doing that?"

"Not really. I can control them, but they'll still move when left to their own devices. Especially to wrap around things."

"Huh." Curran tilted his hand, exposing the inside of his wrist to the tentacle, and watched it extend past his palm and wrap around his wrist several times. The tip wriggled against his arm, almost like it was petting him, and he gently squeezed the part still in his hand in response.

He heard a sharp exhale from above him, and glanced up to see Heinwald pressing his lips together. "Can you feel that?"

"Yes. It's rather sensitive, actually."

"Does it feel good?"

"I certainly think you should keep doing it."

The tentacle twined further down Curran's arm as Heinwald spoke, more and more of its flesh sliding between his fingers. He curled his hand around it and stroked along its length encouragingly. It quivered at his touch, sending vibrations all along his arm where it was coiled around him. "Oh, wow."

Heinwald made a noise like he was trying not to swallow his own tongue and lunged. Before Curran knew what was happening, Heinwald was straddling his lap and grabbing his face to shove their mouths together, his weight pushing Curran into the back of the couch. Whatever sensations he was getting from the tentacles, they must have been even stronger than what Curran had felt, because the kiss was hard and hungry in a way they usually weren't this early on in the proceedings. Curran kissed him back in kind, and gave the tentacle in his hand another squeeze for good measure, making Heinwald groan into his mouth.

When they pulled apart again, panting, Curran grinned. "So, is that a tentacle in your pocket or—"

"Do _not_ finish that sentence," Heinwald growled at him, and another tentacle surged forward to nudge against Curran's lips. He parted them reflexively, and the tentacle shoved its way into his mouth, the tip prodding his tongue. He licked it experimentally; it didn't taste like much of anything, but he could feel tiny bumps along the surface that hadn't be obvious when he'd touched it with his hands. He pressed the flat of his tongue against it and traced along the bumps, his saliva wetting the surface and making it slip around in his mouth.

"Definitely a better use for your mouth," Heinwald said approvingly. Curran glared at him, the effect of which was promptly ruined by the groan he let out as he felt a third tentacle coil around his other arm. The two tentacles around his arms pushed up his sleeves to wrap themselves around more of his skin, then used their improved leverage to raise his arms up and spread them across the top of the couch behind him. He tugged against them, but they held him firmly in place.

"Oh, I do like this." Heinwald admired his work, looking supremely pleased with himself. "No need for accessories."

Between his arms being bound and the smug look Heinwald was giving him, he was starting to feel like a pinned insect in Heinwald's collection, and it was _really_ doing it for him, especially combined with the sensation of the tentacles sliding over his skin and his tongue. He couldn't help squirming, the movement shifting the fabric of his pants and making him suddenly very aware of how hard his cock was. He tilted his head back far enough that the tentacle in his mouth popped out, and gasped, "Heinwald—"

"Hm?" Another tentacle came forward and wormed its way under the hem of Curran's shirt, yanking it up and away from his belt. He shuddered as the cool surface of the tentacle snaked across his abdomen. "Something to say?"

" _Fuck_ , Heinwald," he moaned. The tentacle on his stomach trailed up to his chest, circling around one of his nipples, and he could feel a fifth starting to tug at his belt. "Holy _fuck_."

"I don't think 'holy' is the word I'd use for it." Heinwald's voice was calm and steady still, because of course it was, but there were droplets of sweat beading on his neck, and when he shifted his hips Curran could feel a distinct bulge against his leg. Curran leaned forward as far as he could and placed an open-mouthed kiss on Heinwald's neck, tasting the salt on his tongue.

The movement shifted him enough that his cock brushed against Heinwald's through their clothes, and they both gasped. Heinwald hissed something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like the word _fuck_ and wrapped his both arms around Curran's neck, tugging himself closer and resting their foreheads against each other.

"Give me a moment," he murmured. "This takes a certain amount of—precision—"

Curran wasn't sure what that meant at first, and then he felt a tentacle slither into his pants. It moved slowly, _precisely_ , around the fabric of his underwear in its path, until it wriggled its way further inside and brushed against his cock directly. He groaned and his hips bucked up into Heinwald's, and the friction sent a surge of blood to his head so good his vision swam. "Fuck, do that again."

Heinwald did, this time wrapping the tentacle around Curran's cock and _squeezing_. It was wholly unlike any sensation he'd felt there before, between the texture and the pressure and the position, and there was no way he was going to last through much more of it. Heinwald apparently had a similar thought, because he tightened his grip on Curran's shoulders and began grinding against him in earnest. The tentacle coiled and uncoiled on his cock in time with their thrusts, growing sticky with sweat and precome, and two more tentacles stretched out across his chest under his shirt. They pressed nearly their full length against his skin and undulated rhythmically.

It didn't take long before Curran threw his head back against the couch and let his climax wash over him, hips stuttering. Heinwald thrust against him a few more times before he was gone too, and he slumped forward and buried his face in Curran's shoulder.

"...Well, now I need to change my pants," Curran muttered after a long moment, and Heinwald laughed softly against his ear.

"Stay here tonight." He nibbled on Curran's earlobe, tiny pinpricks of sensation that made his brain fizzle in the aftershocks of orgasm. "We can do further...experiments."

"Am I going to be able to _move_ after these experiments?" Not that he could move _now_ —the various tentacles holding him place had begun to lazily retract themselves, but he wasn't entirely sure his legs worked.

"Not if we do them correctly." Heinwald tilted his head to kiss Curran again, slow and deep, and Curran

He tilted his head to kiss Curran on the mouth, slow and deep, and Curran shivered underneath him. "And believe me, I have a number of ideas I think you'll enjoy very much."


End file.
